New American Bible

From Conservapedia

The New American Bible (NAB) is the modern Catholic translation of the Bible for Americans. It was first published in 1970 and quickly replaced the Confraternity Bible as the most widely used by Catholic parishes. It is one of two specifically Catholic translations in modern English which are in wide use today, the other being the New Jerusalem Bible. Some of the phrasing in the New American Bible is extraordinarily good, such as its rendition of Luke 9:62 ("No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God").[1] But some other phrasing in the New American Bible is awkward or outdated.

It is based on the Douay-Rheims Bible and the Confraternity Bible but with more modern language, and some changes to the wording making it more "inclusive". The New American Bible was initially controversial and ultimately rejected by the Vatican because this translation replaced male-gendered human language with "gender-neutral" terms, and this translation was subsequently revised in part to restore fidelity to the original ancient texts.[2] The 1991 changes, in particular, are controversial because they replaced male-gendered human language with "gender-neutral" terms. Some traditional Catholics reject the New American Bible as a liberal translation and favor the use of the Douay-Rheims and Confraternity Bibles.

The NAB downplays the existence in "hell", instead using substitutes unfamiliar to most people:

In Mark 9:43-48, the three references to Hell are replaced by "Gehenna". Both the NIV and HCSB use "hell".

Outdated or Awkward Translations

The New American Bible has a high percentage of outdated or awkward translations in key passages, including the following examples below. Note that many of these are important passages:

The one who bears the sore of leprosy shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, 'Unclean, unclean!'

Compare the lack of clarity of that to the ESV translation: "The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, 'Unclean, unclean.'"

Its translation is "When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it."[3] But "price" should obviously be translated as "value", or else he would gain no benefit from the transaction.

The translation of the angel's first communication to the holy women at the empty tomb of Jesus after the Resurrection is "do not be amazed," rather than "do not be alarmed" as translated by the Revised English Bible and New Revised Standard Version:

[The angel] said to them, "Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Behold, the place where they had laid him."

Its translation of the census at the time of the birth of Jesus uses the word "enrollment" instead of "census", and uses the word "enrolled" in instead of "registered"; these terms are unfamiliar to most young people who think that enrollment refers to school and do not connect the terms with a census:[5]

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town. c And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

The translation describes a grain of wheat as bearing "fruit", which strikes the average listener as a mistake (the Revised English Bible translates the "produces much fruit" phrase as "bears a rich harvest" and the NIV is clearer still by translating it as "produces many seeds"):

"Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit."

The translation of Hebrews 5:7 uses the obscure word "supplication", which most young people have never heard before (the term is translated as "petitions" in the Revised English Bible and NIV):

"... [Christ] offered prayers and supplications ...."

The translation of Acts 9:31, which explains the growth of early Christianity after the acceptance of Saul (Paul), says that the church was built up "with the consolation of the holy Spirit," when most other translations use the clearer term "encouraged" by the Holy Spirit.

In Acts 2:11, which describes the Pentecost, in which the Apostles spoke in away that enabled listeners having different tongues or languages to understand. The commonly understood term is "language", and the word "tongue" is now arcane. Yet many translations, including the New American Bible and the NIV, still use "tongue" even where "language" would be clearer:

"... both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God."